


Interlude: Shower

by Bookkbaby



Series: Until Only A Scar Remains [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 9x03, Coda, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Interlude, Night Terrors, Other: See Story Notes, POV Castiel, Panic Attacks, Rape Recovery, Self-Hatred, Trauma, Victim Self-Blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 04:46:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6890773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookkbaby/pseuds/Bookkbaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas wakes suddenly, an aborted cry on his lips. His heart pounds wildly in his chest. Adrenaline urges him to run.</p><p>His gaze darts around the room. The shadows are empty; so is the bed. He's alone.</p><p>He's alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude: Shower

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is the second in a planned series of fics dealing with Cas's trauma with regards to 9.03.
> 
> As such, the fic is VERY dark and should be read with caution. Mind the warnings and if you see any I missed, please let me know.

Cas wakes suddenly, an aborted cry on his lips. His heart pounds wildly in his chest. Adrenaline urges him to run.

His gaze darts around the room. The shadows are empty; so is the bed. He's alone.

He's alone.

Cas struggles to get his ragged breathing under control, counting down from eight as he inhales, counting down from ten as he exhales. He closes his eyes, aware of the sweat dampening his shirt and the still rapid beat of his heart.

He's alone. He's in his bedroom in the bunker, wearing an old pair of Sam's pajama pants and one of Dean's T-shirts, and there is no one in bed with him. The door is locked and there is no one waiting in the shadows. His legs are tangled in the sheet, but he is not tied down.

He is safe.

Cas breathes out. Underground, he can't tell if it's raining outside. The silence is comforting and he feels his heartbeat slow to a more normal pace.

That night, _again_.

Cas tries not to think about it.

He tries not to think of it as he untangles his legs from the blankets and gets out of bed on unsteady legs. He tries not to think of it as he stumbles towards his dresser in the dark and blindly selects a few items: a clean shirt, clean pants, clean underwear.

He tries not to think of it as he approaches his bedroom door. A jolt of trepidation goes through him and he ignores it. The bunker is safe. Nothing can get him in here, no ghosts, no demons, certainly no re-

Nothing can. He's safe if he unlocks the door, Cas knows he is. His fear is unwarranted, _shameful_  even, and Cas feels a momentary surge of anger with himself. He's a former warrior of Heaven, he's faced down the armies of Heaven and Hell alike, assisted in averting multiple apocalypses. A dark hallway in the middle of the night in a safehouse should be less than nothing to him.

Still, Cas's hand hesitates on the knob. Then he breathes and unlocks the door.

The hallway is empty when he peers out into the darkness. He glances around warily and then, clutching his clean clothes to his chest, he makes his way towards the bathroom. His feet know the way, leaving his mind free to determinedly _not think_  while his ears are on high alert for the faintest sound of movement.

He hears nothing. Of course he doesn't; Dean and Sam are both sound asleep and there is nobody else here.

Still, Cas finds himself relaxing when he finally reaches the bathroom. He sighs and slumps when he closes and locks the bathroom door behind himself, a tightness he hadn't realized was in his chest dissipating.

He flips the light on, bright and harsh, and he shuts his eyes against it, wincing. He opens his eyes a sliver, letting them adjust.

The bathroom is all cold tile and chrome fixtures. There's a toilet, a sink, a mirror he avoids looking at, and two towel racks on one wall. On the opposite wall stands a claw-foot bathtub and a shower, bordered on three sides by tile wall and usually enclosed by an opaque white curtain.

It's not a large room by any means, and the fluorescent lights leave no shadows for someone to hide in. Cas tests the door handle to make certain that it's locked properly. The door rattles, but the knob doesn't turn.

He tests it again, to be sure.

Cas breathes deep. He drapes his clean clothes over the dry side of the bathtub.

He checks his towel, hanging on the rack closer to the shower. He had showered that morning - yesterday morning, technically - but his towel has dried out since then.

Cas strips. His movements are methodical, efficient, allowing himself no time to think about the chill of the air on his skin. The hair on the back of his neck prickles uncomfortably; he feels like a warrior stripped of all his armor and sent into battle regardless.

He shakes the feeling off and enters the shower. He draws the curtain firmly closed behind himself.

His bar of soap is on a little shelf built into the shower wall. His shampoo is in a bottle near the drain. The water, when it first comes out, is ice cold and Cas grits his teeth and bears it as the water slowly warms. He turns the water to the highest temperature and ducks his head under the spray.

He shuts his eyes against the water and tries not to think, but naked and alone with only the sound of water, it's impossible not to.

That nightmare, again. That night, _again_.

His next breath shudders in his chest and he reaches blindly for the soap. He begins to scrub.

The water isn't hot enough, even as it reddens his flesh and fogs the bathroom mirror. It doesn't warm the chill at the center of his chest and can't burn away the lingering sensation of touch like slime on his skin.

He can't wash it off.

Cas gulps air and scrubs harder with the soap. He scrubs and he scrubs, nails digging into the bar, rough edges of his nails dragging against his skin, and he can't wash it off, he _can't wash it off_ -

Cas drops the bar of soap and collapses against one wall of the shower. The chill of the tile seeps into his arm, shocking him with cold and grounding him. His breaths are ragged and his eyes burn.

He has no right. He knows that. He knows that even as the bile creeps up his throat and his mind torments him with all the paths he didn't take.

If only he had picked a different Dumpster to find food in. If only he'd been more aware, if he'd gone to Dean and Sam immediately, if he had found other shelter, if he'd done anything, _anything_  other than what he'd done, if he'd taken another path-

His vision has gone blurry. The sound of the shower is muffled, like he's listening through cotton, and there's this harsh, hiccuping noise he's startled to realize is coming from his own throat.

Her eyes accuse him in his nightmares, demanding to know why he did it, but he can't answer her, can't say anything, can't move, can't _stop it_ -

He would have given anything to stop it.

And for all his guilt, there's still the terror in his memory, the knowledge of what lurked just beneath the human skin. Cas sees her face in his memory and he can't divorce _that face_  from the events of that night, can't manage a proper apology to the true owner of that body when nightmares of those hands still wake him at night, shaking and sweaty and in dire need of being cleansed.

Cas doesn't know how long it will take him to feel clean again, how long until his stomach no longer rebels and his breathing doesn't shudder when he's reminded of that night. It's something that has seeped into his skin, a stain he can't wash out.

Cas reaches between his legs and washes the area perfunctorily, roughly, gritting his teeth.

He doesn't want his body to react; he _loathes_  it for its weakness, its inability to differentiate between wanted and unwanted touches. He loathes it for responding even as he silently _begged_  it not to.

His body had betrayed him utterly and he _loathes_  it for that. He loathes this frail, weak human shell he'd been forced to inhabit after Metatron had stolen his Grace.

There's water streaming down his face and a lump in his throat. Cas swallows thickly around it, wipes at his burning eyes with the back of his wrist.

He'd been so stupid. So very, very _foolish_.

If he hadn't trusted Metatron, he would still have his Grace and that night would never have come to pass. His own stupidity had led him here, his own poor choices and his fear.

If he'd had his Grace, everything would have been different. He would have seen the creature lurking beneath an innocent woman's skin. The cold and the rain would not have affected him. Hunger would not have affected him.

He would have been able to fly away, wrapped his wings around himself and vanished. His body would never have reacted in any way he did not wish it to.

If only, if _only_ -

But he had been human, and weak, and _hungry_ , and hadn't seen the danger in accepting food and shelter. For a moment, he'd felt nothing but gratitude for her supposed kindness.

He continues washing, movements slow. His body feels heavy and trembles from exhaustion. The water has gone from hot to lukewarm and he knows that soon it will run ice cold, forcing out of the shower whether or not he's ready.

He isn't ready, not yet, and so he keeps scrubbing. He scrubs and scrubs until the only hands he can feel on his skin are his own.


End file.
